I´m glad you guy´s like the AAR. It is a lot of work, but for both of us it is also fun to "play" the game again and go thru all the happiness and pain again. We both had our moments of pain in this game....

I´m using "SimpleScreenshot" for my screenshots. Easy to use and it can save in different graphic formats direct out of the game like a camera. Hehe, i try to copy George´s graphic style a bit since i like it a lot. Personally i don´t like AAR without graphics. I want to follow the thinking of the players and this is only possible with enough pics. That´s why we try to post enough screens to keep the readers up to date. And yes, such a AAR can make players buying a game like AT. But we both decided to do it cause it was such a monster of a battle. What you see actually is nothing serious compared to the action later in this game.....

Btw, even i won most of the times playing my strategy as russian player it doesn´t mean you can´t fight it (and beat it). Some players (XboronX, Manus von Olie, Tweber) kicked my ass. It´s not the ultimate always winning strategy. And for saving Moscow i paid a high price. Just take a look at my southern front....but it was a question of setting priorities

Back to the AAR style. I plan to add some screenshots for overall power and losses every 10 turns. I hope George will do the same so we can compare our troops strength. Most of the time George feared my "reserves" while i had nothing and fought for my life

Actually this AAR will make a little break since George is on a business trip. We will probably continue next week. But since this is a long term project and not to finish in a few days this shouldn´t matter.

Sorry to keep you guys waiting, but sometimes work interferes in a very time-consuming fashion.

Turn 9 - November 29, 1941

As an icy winter takes hold of the Russian country-side, my production switches to defensive weaponry. Infantry, Machine Guns, Infantry Guns, AT Guns and Fighters form the mainstay of my production. And of course a load of horses to keep my forces mobile enough to run away from the Russian Winter Offensive...

The bulk of the reinforcements go to AG North and Center as I expect a Russian attack is imminent. Much to my astonishment, Seille pulls back in front of AG North . In the Center he straightens his lines, but I expect a push here soon.

In hindsight, reinforcing success in the South would have been a much better strategy as the Russian defenders there would have been green recruits and very vulnerable.

A limited view of the front this time, as nothing happens on the Finnish and Northern fronts. In the Crimea I advance as far as the Kerch straight, but I don't expect to be there long.

Next turn will see the start of the Russian Winter Offensive and I plan to withdraw from any strong Russian unit I encounter. That might seem overdone, but after experiencing what Seille did to me in a previous game, I plan to err on the cautious side this time.

First a grand overview showing the whole front end of November 1941. Leningrad and Moscow looks pretty safe for nowand this is a good sign for me. The flank threat to AG South and the new defense in front of Stalingrad seems to be effective in slowing down that army group. Not to forget my friend "General Winter"

Nice George: the tactic you described with transferring artillery after bombardment to a safe spot is a new Key Point on Defense ! I'll put it in the new version for the AT Academy.

And Seille, don't worry about the time between the AAR moves: we know that it costs a lot of time to edit and lay out the stuff, the latter becomes better all the time I noticed and it's worth waiting for.

As Christmas approaches, so does the Russian Winter penalty for the Wehrmacht. A good time to reflect on the previous year. First let's start with losses and kills. As the opening turns give the German player a "free ride", I decided to separate the number of kills for the first two turns and after that.

This is the loss overview on the start of my 3rd turn, August 1, 1941. All in all, an encouraging start.

So in accordance with the prevalent mood at OKH at the time, the Wehrmacht issues orders for a systematic withdrawal on all fronts so as to prevent any serious losses during the winter. Only around Kursk are some minor offensive operations conducted in heavy snow drifts. The initiative has now definitely passed to the Russians.

Almost forgot my production for turn 10. Again mostly defensive in nature and a steady stream of new Fighter II to keep my air force at strength. Losing air superiority against an opponent with a serious production advantage is lethal, so I have to keep a steady stream of Messerschmidts flowing into my air units.

Russian turn 10 starting with the arrived production and a important event. The start of russian winter with a combat penalty of 50% to the germans for 3 turns. The first turn we can´t use since Germany moved back a lot.... But we´ll get back a lot of terrain without paying too much.

We plan to follow the fleeing german as fast as possible using the bad weather. All our fronts started to move. In the center we plan the most important action. After concentrating about 60 fighter II we plan to attack the german artillery and probably HQ´s in the center using the winter bonus. If the german fighters start to intercept we can hopefully down as many as possible. If not we get the artillery and staff only. To make sure that works we moved our biggest fighter force to Vitebsk. They are in close range to the most forwarded germans and in range to the german artillery. We moved the planes from the Leningrad front to the center to add some more power there. And i built a fighter reserve pool near Smolensk to fill up my losses i´ll definitely have soon. We need some more divebombers to add some more punch to the coming attacks.

The only attack we did this turn: After transferring a bigger air unit to Vitebsk we flew an attack to the most forwarded german troops. But looking at the fact we showed the enemy our strength the effect was very small. We simply had not enough action points left for effective attacks and most of the attacking planes has been fighters. (Main task is to engage and destroy german fighters in the center)

Having survived the first month of winter unscathed, moods where up at OKH. Fresh recruits continued to arrive at the various HQ's, boosting morale. This is my production, mostly infantry units and the "standard complement" of new Luftwaffe fighters.

In this turn I limited myself to artillery bombardements and air strikes. I had noticed the strong Russian fighter group in Vitebsk and saw that all my Luftwaffe units in the central sector where within striking range. The battle would be equal in numbers but the higher experience of my fighters should still give me the advantage, and the bombers might take out the airfield, rendering the Red Air Force ineffective next turn.

So without further ado I directed the air strike against Vitebsk into the air, only then realizing the Winter Offensive penalty ALSO APPLIES TO AIR FORCES.... This was the unfortunate result of my mistake:

The result: complete loss of air parity in the Center, with the Russians now having almost a 2 : 1 advantage in fighters. I was sure this mistake would cost me dearly in the future. I really thought it would only go downhill from here...

My forces advance at the whole front. Unfortunately without causing too much damage. George gave a up a lot of terrain, but his troops (except the center Luftwaffe) are in good shape. My troops are stopped at the Isthmus of Perekop and between Leningrad and Helsinki. More and more i feel the lack of artillery, but i can´t have it yet. Other weapons have higher priority.

The last turn with combat penalties and morale at an all-time low. Since I cannot just hand over air superiority to Seille, I switched as much production as I dared over to Fighters. I expected some major air struggle to unfold over the Belorussian steppe in the coming summer and I needed to be ready to deal out some major damage to the Red Air Force.

This all caused my offensive weapon production like tanks and artillery to all but cease. The remainder went to the ever-increasing supply needs of my units (already eating up one of my two major production centers completely). I manage to scrape together about 200 infantry units. A sneak peak shows me Seille in his turn building 400 infantry units, 6 tanks, 9 flak, 8 dive bombers, but strangely... no fighters.

Nevertheless, with our armies being about equal in early December, Seille is now out-producing me at a staggering rate, about a full major production center's worth. My idea at the time was, that this would turn out to be a short war.